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Category Archives: Messy play

I definitely recommend doing this on a warm dry day and in the garden unless you’re very brave daft, as it does get rather messy!!

Harrison had great fun doing this. I ripped off some paper from a roll of lining paper (£2 from Wilko, great for loads of art activities!) and weighed it down with some large stones. On plastic plates I squirted some red and blue paint (the washable stuff used in schools). Then we took our shoes off, put our feet in the cold slimy paint and walked and stamped and marched all over the paper. It was so much fun!

I made sure I was prepared before hand and had a washing up bowl of warm soapy water and a towel ready to wash feet when we’d finished. Still ended up with colourful footprints on the yard!

We will definitely be doing this again in the summer (weather permitting!) but will change it a bit by putting blobs of different coloured paint on the paper first rather than on plates, and now Harrison is less fussy about paint on his hands we will use hands and feet.

Because we had such a big piece of paper we didn’t keep the whole piece of paper, I just cut an a4 size bit off for their art folder but I would fold it up and keep it next time and use as lovely personalised wrapping paper – could plan ahead and use festive colours for christmas paper!

One of the mum, Kayleigh, in the Activities 4 kids Facebook group (please feel to send a request to join!) also did this activitiy with her daughter – as you can see messy but fun!!

Today I was brave and attempted some messy sensory play – a big deal with two
toddlers and a fully carpeted house!
We had a go at snow dough. In a plastic tub we mixed cornflour and shaving foam. It took quite a bit of experimenting to get the consistency right but I think it was roughly equal parts in the end.
I then dumped in some pine cones and twigs that we collected on one of our autumn walks and some baubles. I lay down a cheap shower curtain on the living room floor in an attempt to keep the mess contained. It did still manage to get everywhere but was easily vacuumed up afterwards.
As soon as I put it down Harrison was enthralled and identified it as ‘snow’. He picked it up and sprinkled it, telling me it was snowing and then used the twigs to draw patterns in it.

What he did next was lovely. He took the toys from his school house set and created his own little small world in the tub, with a swing, slide, roundabout and the little characters. He used the pinecones as trees and had great fun in making it snow over his little scene.

He then realised if he compacted the ‘snow’ down he could use his hands and other objects to stamp impressions into it.
His next request was for me to add some water to the tub. I wanted to say no because of the mess, but then realised that’s the whole point of messy sensory play. We tipped a small cup of water in it to make ‘gloop’ and mixed it up using the twigs. Harrison described it as ‘gluey’

It kept Harrison amused for a good hour, not bad for a two year old with the attention span of a gnat! Alex played with it on and off but he’s poorly today so nothing really holds his attention.